Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. (SMI-2.4%) acquires a 70% stake in Avezzano, Italy-based LFoundry for €49M. After the transaction, current owners LFoundry Europe GmbH and Marsica Innovation S.p.A. will each own 15%.

The deal will boost SMIC's overall capacity from 302.6K 8-inch wafers per month to 342.6K per month.

While Qualcomm's (NASDAQ:QCOM) Chinese settlement calls for a 5% royalty rate on multimode 3G/4G devices and a 3.5% rate on other 4G hardware (for "3G and 4G essential Chinese patents"), the rates will be derived from a royalty base of 65% of a device's net selling price.

Qualcomm's royalty rates are typically derived from an OEM's full sales price. Apple, whose royalty payments are based on the hardware price charged to the company by its contract manufacturers, is a notable exception.

Existing Chinese licensees will have "an opportunity to elect to take the new [license] terms for sales of branded devices for use in China as of January 1, 2015."

As part of the settlement, Qualcomm has agreed to expand its existing partnership with Chinese foundry SMIC (NYSE:SMI). Qualcomm struck a deal with SMIC last summer covering the production of 28nm Snapdragon processors.

TSMC (NYSE:TSM), Qualcomm's primary foundry partner for many years, could see its sales to Qualcomm for older processors (where TSMC's manufacturing process lead relative to SMIC doesn't factor) affected by the SMIC provision.